Organized By Volunteers, Crew Team Gets Nod

Glastonbury High School is jumping into the water with its own crew team in a program created in just a couple of months by volunteers and approved Monday as a new school sport.

Resident Jeff Carstens presented the school board with a proposal that includes the donations of boats, launches, training space and coaches. Ninety students have already signed up.

The school board unanimously approved crew as a new high school sport. It also agreed to foot the $1,200 to $1,500 annual bill for bus transportation, the town's only cost for the program.

``This is a little tough to beat,'' said school board member Suzanne Galvin.

``We have never seen a proposal that is this well organized,'' said school board Chairman Helen Stern.

Students will begin training to use the boats, or ``shells,'' when the spring season starts April 9. Their goal is to participate in a May 19 Hartford-area regatta. They also plan to participate in the June 2 Emerson Regatta in Middletown, the last event of the spring season. The fall season begins after Labor Day and ends Nov. 2.

``It really is an exciting opportunity,'' said school Superintendent Jacqueline Jacoby.

Carstens, a retired crew coach for Hartford public schools and a former college crew athlete, said two Glastonbury High School students, Sophia Soto and Allison Hujar, first approached him in October about a crew program at the school.

``I've been waiting for this all my life,'' Carstens told the school board. ``It's a lifelong sport. ... It's beautiful out there on the water in the spring and fall. And [crew] helps people get into college.''

The team will have six eight-oar shells propelled by eight student rowers and a ``coxswain'' who gives commands. Three coaches on three launches will each oversee two shells. At least three non-coaching adults will also be at each practice to offer additional supervision. Each shell will be rowed at least twice at each practice, giving at least 75 students an opportunity to row each day.

Monday evening, Carstens introduced the program's volunteers and donors one by one.

Steve Fluhr, the crew coach at Trinity College, is donating his time to help coach the Glastonbury team. The college is also donating use of its training space, water tanks on the college campus in which students can practice rowing while watching themselves in mirrors.

David Trond of the Vespoli Boat Co. of New Haven, is donating a boat to the program. Riverfront Recapture, an organization leading the revitalization of public boating in the Hartford area, is also donating the use of two of its boats.

Skip Kamis, a builder in town, is donating a boat launch and is building a rack to hold up to six boats when they are not in use. Mike Buenaventura of Seaboard Marina on Tryon Street is donating docking space at the marina and resident Bill Dufford is providing off-site storage for the boats. Carstens' wife, Dale, is also donating a boat launch.